


A Little Taste

by Val_Creative



Series: Warlock & His Dollophead [19]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Aphrodisiacs, Canon Era, Drugged Sex, Friendship, M/M, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-20
Updated: 2014-05-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 19:48:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1660376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Val_Creative/pseuds/Val_Creative
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin points out some very interesting berries from Gaius’s texts. Lancelot witnesses firsthand how <i>interesting</i> a situation can turn when he needs to retrieve a missing Arthur and his also missing manservant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Taste

**Author's Note:**

  * For [andrewonders](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andrewonders/gifts).



> (A very special thank you to my friends on Skype who encouraged this on, even when I was whining, and The Merlin Family as well as The Warlock and His King Network on Tumblr for being a wonderfully excitable bunch ❤ ❤ ❤ )
> 
>  
> 
> Day #19: "outdoors, woods, parks, gardens"

*

 

Knights didn't usually visit and converse with servants.

Then again, servants were expected to be dutiful and obedient, not warlocks poring over ancient texts and cracking humorous jokes about Sir Dinadan's bumble with the pole-axe during the mid-day training.

 _Merlin_ was the exception to a lot of broken, important rules and the kingdom's presumptions, Lancelot thought fondly to himself.

But one of the bravest—if not _the bravest_ man he had ever known in his life.

Gaius's workshop table overflowed with yellowed scraps of parchment, glass jars and vials filled with concoctions and elixirs knotted with rawhide string. Lancelot knew he never truly appreciated how much went into the studies of being a physician, but Merlin took to it easily, winding about, mixing tinctures and cataloging different, lifesaving plants.

Lancelot flipped idly through one of the textbooks, fingers smoothing over brittle pages as Merlin hummed a nonsense tune, crushing a darkish orange paste in his mortar in hurried, rotating motions.

He gestured to an open page, tapping a fingertip and catching Merlin's attention.

"This looks unpleasant," Lancelot said, glumly staring at a drawing of stemmed berries—covered in black, _thick_ thorns.

Merlin leaped from his seat on the nearby bench, placing down the items in his hands.

"Hmm, I'd say so— _oh_ ," he muttered in realization, taking the book from Lancelot and grinning. "I've been looking for this, thanks." _What_ was Merlin looking so pleased about? Each little globe of darkly inked fruit had been depicted with an appalling amount of the thorns.

"What is it?" he asked, curious by Merlin's look. "A poisonous berry?"

"I wouldn't call it _poisonous_. More… unpredictable. It's been used by the Druids for fertility rituals or by people of the lower town to, uhm," Merlin coughed, grinning wider, ears suspiciously pink. " _Enhance_ their pleasures."

Lancelot blinked, keeping his expression composed, but feeling a flicker of obvious, needling heat in his belly.

"Gaius told me about a man who ate more than a handful and thought he saw floating balls of flames above the girl's head." Merlin then added quickly, rushed as an afterthought, "And he went catatonic for several candlemarks." Lancelot twitched, but his face nearly perfected neutrality.

Merlin knew it was only a mask, assuring him, posture relaxed, "But loads of people have eaten them in moderation and haven't hallucinated until the point of sudden deathly fainting. They can't be _that_ dangerous."

"Consuming them increases the desire to have… relations?"

He still couldn't get off that. Lancelot fought a mortified blush and Merlin nudged his elbow playfully, leaning comfortably to Lancelot's side.

"Now say that again and say it as it is," Merlin said, impishly. " _Sexual intercourse_." He chuckled, backing off as Lancelot thumped the book to his shoulder. Leave it to Merlin to get cheeky about his embarrassment.

" _What_? It's not like you're not having it, too!"

He watched Merlin bluff his indignation, rubbing at his brown-jacketed shoulder, pouting.

"How is Arthur, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Ergh, trust me you wouldn't want Arthur in your bed, no matter how _princely_ and handsome he looks," Merlin prattled on, releasing a long, aggravated sigh between his lips. "He whines and steals all the blankets, and then mumbles in his sleep and it's very annoying—"

"—Merlin," Lancelot cut him off, patiently. "I meant how have you and Arthur been since… ?"

He didn't need to disclose anything further. A silent beat passed.

Merlin's arms began to fold. He jerkily scratched at one of his wrists, frowning.

"… Since Morgana unleashed hell on earth and we all managed to walk away unscathed from it?"

Lancelot wasn't so keen to relive the subject either. So he understood why Merlin had glanced right away, sounding low and hoarse.

But it was simply _miraculous_.

One moment, Lancelot had walked into the veil of screams and eclipse, willing to sacrifice himself for Arthur and for Camelot's safety—and the next he was stumbling miles away, inside the Darkling Woods, numbly accepting the warm, fierce hug from a red-eyed Merlin.

He had no memory of how this had occurred, how Lancelot escaped the clutches of death, but the knight had been met with everyone's relief.

It had been a moon's full turn since the Dorocha had been defeated.

But sometimes, Lancelot still felt the chilling brush of that dark rift.

"Arthur's fine. We're fine," Merlin said, honestly agleam in his eyes when he smiled a little at his friend. "He knows I'm not going anywhere—but enough about me, what about _you_ and Gwen's reunion?"

"I… "

"Didn't Arthur give you permission to 'woo' her?" Merlin asked suggestively, rocking up on his toes. Lancelot sighed.

"The only permission I need is Guinevere's; and yes, Arthur has given us his blessing in pursuing fidelity. My conscious worries me no more."

Merlin beamed, much to his apprehensive cheer.

"I'm happy for you both," he said. Lancelot nodded, smiling back, running his fingertips back over the yellowed text in a dreamy pattern.

"She's lovely, Merlin. Guinevere's wise, and brave, and true-hearted—"

Merlin poked his tongue out his mouth, exaggerating a disgusted face.

"You are __besotted__ , you are," the warlock teased, voice growing louder, taking another smart rap from the textbook gripped in Lancelot's hands.

 

*

 

The discussion about the aphrodisiac fruit was eventually forgotten.

Camelot needed her knights and needed her knights sharp and ready.

Lancelot dressed fast in his chambers, leaving off the mail and his cape. He kissed Gwen's sleepy lips, cherishing her ambrosial, warm scent.

"Where is Prince Arthur?" Sir Leon questioned, meeting him in the corridor. "A serving maid believes you to be the last to speak with him."

He blinked, feigning confusion.

"Arthur mentioned a hunt. He should return before evening-fall."

"That might not be wise." Leon's eyebrows furrowed. He explained to Lancelot the rumors of bandits prowling the borders of Camelot's forest. One of the patrol had been severely injured during a run-in.

"I'll have you and Elyan—"

"Perhaps it would arouse less suspicion if I went myself," Lancelot mentioned, calmly ignoring the wary frown. "With your leave, of course."

After a period of awkward, ambiguous silence, Sir Leon gazed over him some more, narrow-eyed, before tilting his head in a stiff, brisk nod.

 

*

 

Lancelot mentally apologized to Merlin.

Romantic, secluded picnic or not—it was better that Lancelot fetched them, rather than half of the guard accompanying him to witness their future king's preferences in skinny, low-born _manservants_.

(In truth, he never cared that Merlin's devotion and fondness for Arthur carried a deep meaning, or that Arthur seemed to carry the same. He did __care__ however that they would be mindful of their surroundings.)

This hardly appeared to be the case when Lancelot tracked them to a familiar rendezvous, petting the brown mare snuffling his neck.

Within the glade, both men sat together, face-to-face.

The unstemmed berries cradled in Merlin's broad hand, peeled of their ugly, curled thorns, their flesh glimmering in the sunlight. Both Arthur's fingers and Merlin's hand stained violet with juices, not inky-black.

"—'m not afraid," Merlin said. His chin tilting up in determination. "I want to do this, Arthur. I want to know what this feels like with you."

Arthur exhaled audibly, plucking up one of the soft berries.

"Then you have my consent." He sniffed it tentatively, evaluating the odor. "Despite your perversions," Arthur said, muttering, lips quirking.

Merlin's laugh rang out.

Neither sensed Lancelot's presence beyond the glade's clearing, amongst the undergrowth. The loyal knight prepared to start forward, ready to apologize to both of them for interrupting but—

He froze in place, Lancelot's gloved hand resting on tree bark as Merlin gulped down part of the handful, chewing noisily and approvingly.

Merlin shifted his knees to Arthur's blanket, fascinated as Arthur's mouth brushed his palm. Arthur nibbled the rest of the fruit off Merlin's hand, licking bare skin, nibbling and laving his tongue across Merlin's fingers.

The surly mannerism Arthur often presented, __gone__. Lancelot doubted it had to do with the berries, and more to do with Arthur's less known affections, but then he caught a glimpse of Merlin's pupils widening.

When they darken with lust, Merlin fumbled with Arthur's breeches, urging him closer. Lancelot, frozen to paralyzed limbs, breathing hard, witnessed Merlin nuzzle between Arthur's spreading legs, mouthing and groaning and pushing his face into that blond thatch of pubic hair.

He should leave. Avert his gaze as Arthur's face goes shiny and pink, body heaving and rutting up as Merlin growls feral between his clothed thighs, lapping messily at naked prick and touching lips over its glands.

The woods remained foggy and dampened in sun, insects buzzing along, some attracted to the perspiration to Lancelot's forehead.

He refused to clap them from his face, to risk swatting, the armour on his shoulders feeling like boulders. Lancelot's entire belly was on fire.

The berries did their work, it seemed—unhinging inhibitions with Arthur's hands grasping Merlin's backside, a oil-gleaming cockhead slipping into Arthur's loosened opening, as they cried out in a shattered unison.

Lancelot found his bottom lip swollen and hot, from worrying down, and he inhaled shakily. The undergrowth pressing in at all sides. He shouldn't be here. He squinted his brown eyes, to the point of closing them.

Didn't know how much longer it went on. The noises, the slapping of wet flesh, the muffled grunts and sighs and whimpers of both drugged men.

Lancelot peered up from keeping his gaze downcast. Merlin rode hard above Arthur, into him, tossing his head back, dripping with sweat.

" _Mine_ , oh _oh_ ," he uttered, as if strangled. Merlin reared back, leaving Arthur's muscles fluttering empty, as he spent onto Arthur—onto his chest and abdomen, running his hands over the warm, milky seed.

Lancelot couldn't swallow down a breathy, tormented noise as Arthur gave one last pull at his own cock, joining Merlin's spent with his own.

He needed… to…

They murmured to each other, too quiet for anyone else to hear.

A songbird flitting overhead.

Lancelot waited.

He waited, pulse thready and wild, and his groin squeezing in ache.

 

*


End file.
